I-CAR® Continues to Build on Program Growth and Development with Training Expansion

Thursday, 05 May 2016 23:09

I-CAR® Continues to Build on Program Growth and Development with Training Expansion

I-CAR® recently announced its goal of providing I-CAR training, knowledge and solutions to 19,000 shops through expanded and improved training courses, topic areas, learning methods and simply by better clarifying the benefits of training. The 19,000 shop goal adds the next 10,000 shops to the 9,123 businesses I-CAR trained in 2015.

In 2015 alone, I-CAR’s training programs enabled 3,667 shops to achieve Gold Class® while another 1,696 shops were on the Road to Gold program to complete the training required to earn Gold Class. A total of 512,425 credit hours were completed by 62,690 students in 2015. In addition, I-CAR conducted 8,087 Welding Training & Certification™ tests.

“It’s time for the industry to recognize that technical training which contributes to performance of complete, safe and quality repairs isn’t an option – it can mean survival for collision repairers, and our data shows that while surviving, shops can also thrive due to the productivity and efficiency gains that can be achieved through a better educated workforce,” said I-CAR CEO and President John Van Alstyne. “It is imperative that each and every technician in the industry has access to training and understands how they will benefit, and that business owners recognize the return on investment they can gain by investing in training now.”

Other industry achievements and I-CAR contributions in 2015 included:

Addition of the Welding Training & Certification program as a curriculum option for career and technical schools;

Recognition of Eric’s Auto Center CARSTAR, the first collision repair facility to achieve 25 years of continuous Gold Class designation; and

Recognition of I-CAR as a MAACO Vendor of the Year

Contribution of $171,000 on behalf of the industry to the Collision Repair Education Foundation; since 2012, I-CAR earmarks $1 for each course taken by students, and based on total annual industry training levels, makes a respective donation that provides financial support for schools.

In 2016 and beyond, I-CAR plans to serve additional shops and technicians by expanding their hands-on skills development courses, such as Rivet Bonding and MIG Brazing. Also debuting this summer is the ProLevel® 2 pathway for the recently launched Production Management role, which is the first new role added to the Professional Development Program™ since its launch in 2010.

Working with Enterprise, I-CAR was able to verify that in the first quarter of 2016 Gold Class shops again outpaced the national industry average Length of Rental (LOR) performance: In an analysis of data from the collision repair shops in the U.S. with which Enterprise conducts business, the national industry average LOR was 11.5 days, Gold Class shops averaged just 10.2 days, an 11 percent improvement. Further, the top 500 Gold Class LOR performers turned those repairs around in only 7.9 days, or a 31 percent improvement. Isolating the 100 top-performing Gold Class shops, the average LOR drops to 6.5 days for a 44 percent improvement. This latest analysis is nearly identical to early 2015 findings, and is also supported by 3rd party CynCast’s single-value scorecard, known as the Shop Performance Value (SPV) rating, which previously showed that Gold Class businesses had an average rating of 405 compared to 268 for non-Gold Class shops; a full 51 percent difference.

“Our goal is to help the industry understand the critical need for training, the benefits of training and that today’s I-CAR is not yesterday’s I-CAR,” said Van Alstyne. “We offer a fresh and relevant curriculum, the latest technical information through our Repairability Technical Support (RTS) Portal, and a total solution that in the face of the Technical Tsunami helps our industry perform complete, safe and quality repairs – while ultimately helping to improve business performance and reduce liability.”